Looking to choose which industries I’ll use on my layout. After perusing through the Walthers catalog, I noticed that other than DPM and Walther’ kits, there aren’t that many actual “industry” kits available, other than industries more relevant to turn-of-the century layouts. DPM I plan on using, my question is about Walthers.
Has anyone built their kits and happy with the finished quality? I’m eyeing a number of their kits, they look pretty cool. But are they good products, or not worth the effort? Any responses would be appreciated. Thanks guys.
It is not always easy to make a Walthers kit look as good as the photo on the cover (or for that matter for the actual buildings on the displays Walthers brings to train shows and trade shows and has on display in their Milwaukee showroom). Part of the reason is that they have excellent modelers on their staff.
Because the buildings are large, the walls sometimes show a warp and some bracing is in order – beyond what the kit provides. This is also true for the Bachmann engine facilities – the walls are flimsy and if assembled exactly according to the instructions you can see the problems. They need help (which doesn;'t cost much if you save your sprues from prior kits)
By the way don’t ignore the kitbash opportunities with cheaper Model Power and IHC buildings as per the Art Curren articles in MR in years past – he could do wonders with the dinky little “Mount Vernon Manufacturing” kit that various companies have sold over the years
Dave Nelson
Concerning Walthers big Cornerstone industrial kits, most are really quite nice but I never build them according to the instructions. Most are simply too “boxy” to be very interesting. You should use imagination when building them…take a back wall, cut it up and create set-back upper floors atop the basic structure. Do the same but put a jog in the walls, rather than having them simply straight. If the location presents itself, “unfold” a structure and use most or all of the walls up front, especially if the kit has peaked end-walls (replace what’s missing on the other 3 sides with sheet styrene, it will be largely hidden anyway). Changes in wall height and roof angle makes for a much more interesting and impressive building. As Art Curren always suggested, kits are never really meant to be assembled as per their instructions!
Art Curren was also a master of “kit mingling” - taking walls and details from several kits and putting them together to form unique buidlings. One excellent tip he gave was to make photo copies of kit pieces and play around with them to come up with a design you like.
kansas22: What sort of industries do you wi***o model? There are plenty of industry kits–and plenty of modern industries using 50-100 year old buildings…what do you want your railroad to move?
I’ve got plenty o Walthers buildings on my layout, at least 5 or 6. I like them. Next BIG project is building the ore dock using two (or three…or four) Walthers ore dock kits !!
Thanks for the responses guys. Jet: I’m not looking for any ‘specific’ industries. I really just kind of want buildings that ‘look’ very realistic, and thusly will look believable to the viewer when it is on the layout. I’m at the stage of cutting up my plywood top. It will be a cookie-cutter top, and need to have somewhat of the dimensions of the buildings that will go on the layout, so I can bascially ‘cut’ around the footprint of the building along with the trackplan.
I can see why Andy Sperandeo wrote in a post 3 years back about needing to ‘scratchbuild’ 90% of the industries on his line. Not a lot of vendors to choose from when it comes to industries. Kitbashing is an option, but I don’t want to buy 3 or 4 kits just to build one building.
Again, thanks guys. Will have to estimate what ‘might’ go where, cut, then hope for the best later. Scratchbuilding, here I come.
kansas22: It’s kind of important to know, at least in a general sense, how the industry fits into the overall picture of the railroad–and that means knowing what it is that you are shipping. If you want to model, for example, a coal road, then it helps to have some pictures of coal mines and industries that use coal, and then pick between the various coal-mine models to be had.
I see plenty of modern industrial buildings in the Walthers catalog–ADM grain mills, plastic-pellet facilities, modern prefab metal industrial builidngs of all shapes, container terminals, etcetera. Having spent some time around Chicago and the Midwest, looking at things from the perspective of the tracks ( I take Amtrak to visit relatives in Illinois and Wisconsin) I notice that darn near everything I see looks like it came out of the Walthers catalog.
How realistic the building looks depends largely on the skill of the modeler: a skilled craftsman can turn an old Tyco kit from the bargain bin at the hobby shop and some cardboard into a work of art, and an amateur can make a $300 craftsman kit look like something a third-grader made out of popsicle sticks. Pictures of the Walthers kits in the catalog are typically unpainted plastic: they show how the model looks if you just built it out of the box without paint or modification, so they won’t look as realistic as a painted, weathered and superdetailed rendition of the same model.
You’re right about the quality of the modeler. Knowing that my quality as a craftsman on a scale of 1 - 10 is probably a 2, I wanted a kit that would look good after someone put in the effort to complete it, and not be disappointed after hours of work only to look like crap because of defects in materials or products.
In that case the Walthers kits do pretty well–as mentioned above, some of the larger kits benefit from a little bracing, but generally they go together pretty well. Start out with something small, and for the next kit your skill will be a 3…and onward and upward.
Quite frankly, if you are not sure of your skill, plastic kits like the Walthers ones are a good place to start. They’re detailed but pretty simple to put together, and as your skill grows you’ll find them pretty easy to modify and expand upon. DPM kits are good and sturdy but are a little more demanding–most of them require quite a bit of flash removal, sanding and careful fitting, and they depend on the model builder to add any but the most rudimentary detail. Which is fine if you’ve got an overflowing parts box like mine, but not everyone does…then again, build more than a few kits and you’ll grow one too!
Walther’s kits vary quite a bit in quality. Some of their kits are recycled kits that other manufacturers have produced for years. For example, their “new” synagogue is a recycled Heljan kit. I find their kits that are truly new tend to be of a higher quality than the retreads. Some of them have extremely small detailed parts which look good if you can manage to put them together properly. I personally could do with a little less fine detail in favor of a easier assembly. I buy plastic kits for just that reason.
I don’t have a very high opinion of DPM kits. Their windows and doors are grossly oversized. I have also found that some of their walls are warped badly and I haven’t figured out yet how they can be straightened without damaging the piece. They are OK for a background structure but I won’t put them out front.
JE and Jet, thanks for responding. So basically after reading your posts, I have nobody to lean on and be my go-to vendor for industrial kits. If somebody was thinking about starting a company up, I think I may have an idea for you.
Why would you want to limit yourself to just one vendor for kits? There are plenty of great kits out there, just because not every product a company produces is a winner doesn’t mean that you have nobody to lean on–just that you have some things to learn.
Perhaps we could give more specific advice once you have more idea of what industries you would like to model–then we could suggest specific kits. Otherwise it’s a bit like asking for advice on what locomotive to buy, and when people ask whether you’re looking for stem or diesel, what railroad you’re modeling, you say “oh, just some general railroad, as long as it looks realistic.”
The choice is part of the realism. A coal mine would be out of place if you’re modeling the West Coast, and a citrus packing plant wouldn’t look good if you’re modeling New England, no matter how well-built the kit. A grain mill would look okay if you’re modeling Kansas–but a seaport wouldn’t.
Don’t sell your own abilities short. Until a year ago, I hadn’t put together a kit in 40 years, and those were sloppy airplanes with crooked decals. I took a lot of time, and tried a lot of the techniques suggested here. Now, I’m reasonably happy with each of my projects. The most important thing I’ve learned is that this isn’t a race. Take your time, let the glue set and the paint dry. You can always repaint your model if it doesn’t come out right the first time.
It’s time for a break from benchwork. Go get a little DPM kit, and some cheap acrylic paints. Spend a week or two, doing just a little each day. Once you’re done, you’ll have a much better idea of how the whole process works, and how much you can do with a kit.
Thanks for the kind words Mr. Beasley. That is actually great advice. Once I get the table top secured to my risers and am happy with the look, I think I am going to get a kit and build it. I’ve been eyeing the Walther’s Champion Packing kit. I like the size and look of it, and have a good idea of where I want it on the layout. I wasn’t really looking at just 1 vendor to buy industrial kits from. I just wanted some opinions as to what vendors other modelers have had good success with. Seems that a quality modeler can make any kit look great, regardless of who made it.
You may want to try the modular kits from DPM and Walthers to get a model of an industry you like. I’ve started a model of a brewery. I have several tracks running into the building as well as an outside dock. I want to use these kits to model a false front of an industry that has a couple of tracks running into it and thru the wall into my garage so I can store sme rolling stock there. The kits are very easy to adapt to the space available. I also am modeling a chemical plant using cans, PVC pipe, and other assorted items found around the house. The chrome silver muffler tape is an excellent representation of the thin metal that is used to cover insulated tanks.
Nearly every kit on my layout has been modified in some way. It doesn’t matter if its Walthers, Model Power, Bachmann, you name it. I tend to add my own “touch” to them. For example, there’s a small warehouse near my layout aisle. The stock Model Power kit comes molded in nasty yellow and brown plastic. Well, that had to go. Not only did the colors made me want to puke, but you don’t see those colors together often. So, I hit the entire building with grey primer, then painted the brick sections red and the roof dark grey. Oh, and I moved the large doors onto the side of the structure rather than on the front.
Of course, the Chicagoan picks a meatpacking plant! (by the way, I was born in Skokie.)
I can tell you a little about that kit–I am kitbashing the heck out of one, although it will represent a fruit packing plant. One nice thing about it is that the smokestack is a single solid casting, so you don’t have to worry about masking a seam line in the stack like you would with many older kits that made stacks out of two half-circle castings you glue together. There aren’t too many tiny parts to it, and the level of detail is nice. I’d show you a completed photo but mine isn’t finished yet.
Here is a photo with some of my completed structures:
The kits, from left to right, are a highly kitbashed Walthers “Lakeside Shipping” kit, one of two buildings from an IHC “Grusom Casket Co.” kit (stock, other than a scratchbuilt water tower), a DPM “Cutting’s Scissor Co.” with some DPM rooftop-detail bits added and a Campbell loading dock, and a single IHC “Painted Lady” Victorian, kitbashed into two smaller Victorian homes
Thanks Jet, I am LMAO about your Chicago/meat packing plan comment. Has absolutely made my day. And thank you for the comments about the kit. Makes me want it even more now. However, I discovered after I went to buy it online from Walthers last night that they retired it, and are out of stock on it. Oh well, will have to dig it up to find it somewhere.
Your graphic showing your kits (and skill) is awesome. They look great!! Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about. Absolute realism. I guess I do have a lot to learn. Its not the kit or its manufacturer that makes the final product great, but the skill of the modeler to make it so. Thanks for your help.
